Nine-year old Holsteiner mare Cassandra was the horse of a lifetime for Dr Laura Mann. So when Cassie shattered her right front pastern, Laura was devastated. Cassie was given very little hope of being anything other than a retired pasture horse, but amazingly, she’s now being ridden at walk, trot and canter.
Verena felt that dressage would help Cassie build the strength and flexibility she needed to recover, and started training Laura and Cassie each week. As Laura recently told Warmbloods Today magazine, “the dressage work made a big difference.”
As usual with horses, nothing goes quite as planned.
It was the day of the Prix St. Georges, and, for some lucky few, a chance for a team medal.
You could cut the tension with a knife as we piled into a cab to head to the show grounds. Today was the day we’d been training for during the past year. We’d envisioned this moment, obsessed about 8-meter circles, stressed angles in the shoulder-ins…
This was the biggest and the final CDI of the year. The moment was what we made it.
It’s been truly amazing to watch these diverse and talented riders and horses. I am so proud of Frankie and Ursula. They made it here through a lot of hard work, dedication, support, luck and determination. It goes to show, once again, that anything is possible when you set a goal, and you push through the ups and downs, gracefully keeping stride through the disappointment, frustrations and heartache.
Day two of the Pan Ams in Mexico brings a downpour and turns the arenas into small lakes.
The rain was coming down in buckets, and pretty soon we were all huddled in the tack room playing cards and killing time, as we waited in the hopes that the rain would clear. The schedule was cleared, and all the arenas were opened to all riders. A few brave riders tackled the raindrops and we watched them as they mounted and headed off into the downpour.
Exciting news: Verena will be blogging for The Chronicle Of The Horse during her time coaching at the Pan Am Games in Mexico! Here’s her first post, in which she, the girls and the horses arrive in Mexico for the first time.
It’s amazing the twists and turns you make in your life and how fate plays its role in creating chance meetings that turn into life-changing experiences.
I am a dressage trainer born in Germany and trained in Holland. I am currently based in Somis, Calif., where I train and compete for VS Dressage. I’ve had the great pleasure of training both Franchesca Liauw and Ursula Lange, both riders for the Puerto Rican team, which is how I got here, and where my story begins.
